Saorsat Reception

Specification of SaorsatSetbox or TV Satellite receiving system (Morehere)

The Saorsat service is proposed to be supplied via Ka-Sat @ 9E, using Ka-Band. The Satellite is many for Internet use and has 80+ spots. One covers Ireland. The satellite was launched sucessfully 21:51 26th Dec 2010 to 07:03 27th Dec 2010. Reports in October 2011 suggest Public Launch of service in early 2012.

If you have a Multiswitch, you only need a single connection to the Low Band and Vertical port. If you have Diseqc and a PVR you need two Diseqec switches. Both connections then used to the same port on both switches.

If you are also using Freesat or Sky on a Multiswitch (Sky as well as other boxes) or Diseqc (Not Sky) system put the 28.2E LNB on “port 1”

If you are using a “Wavefrontier T90” then you need Horizontal or Right Hand Circular as it reverses the sense of the polarisation. If using a Multiswitch with the “Wavefrontier” then you need a model designed option of Quad LNB rather than Quattro only and select the “Low + Horizontal” port.

If your receiver does have settings for Ka-Sat:

Frequency 20.185GHz

Symbol rate 25000

Polarisation Left hand Circular

FEC 1/2 (or auto)

Other specifications

Unlike Saorview, RTENL has not yet published a specification or a Test company. However a “Freesat HD” or “Freesat+ HD” should work. If you want Freesat as well as Saorsat you need a Multifeed dish or a 2nd dish and a Multiswitch or Diseqc switch, also a “Freesat HD” receiver or TV that supports Diseqc.

DVB-S2 (uses dish). DVB-S will not work

HD and regular reception, with SCART (regular TV or downsampled HD) and HDMI for connecting to TVs.

MPEG4 H.264 video and AAC audio

MHEG5 middleware (Enhanced program guide, text/image pages, menus)

Recording is optional

Component is optional and should not give HD

Probably 80cm dish is the minimum.

Dish pointed at Kasat @ 9E, or a Dual /Multifeed dish including 9E as well as possibly 28E (Freesat/Sky). Outside South East a larger dish may be required for multifeed.

Ka BandLNBF rather than usual Ku LNBF (Appears to be Left hand Circular on Lygnsat at 20.185GHz). The LNBF has switchable polarity so will work with a T90 Wavefrontier.

Unlike common Satellite reception, it will be possible to use a single outlet Ka LNBF to feed any number of setboxes (Common satellite systems need Quad, Octo or Quattro systems)

A dual tuner Recording box will only need one coax unlike Sky/Freesat which needs two.

A dish installed for Kasat Tooway Internet access can also feed Set-box simply by fitting Satellite signal splitter on cable.

A Freesat HDset-box but not a Sky Setbox should work. But only some “Freesat HD” boxes support Dual Feed (Diseqc)

Receiving Sky/Freesat and Saorsat will need either a special dual feed 90cm dish or a 2nd 80cm Saorsat dish on existing Sky/Freesat systems.

Using one dish for Multiple Satellite Services.

Use 80cm (pointed at 9E, the 28E offset off arm ) to 110cm (Pointed at 16E) depending on Location. This has been tested with a distribution Multiswitch that can feed 16 satellite tuners (A PVR uses two tuner connections) costing under €250. The existing Ku Band 9E signals are fine and a Sky Digibox is compatible (it only sees the signals from the first LNB, the Freesat & Sky signals). The “LNBF” to receive Sky/Freesat (BBC etc) is on the extreme left. A system like this can feed all the channels from up to four Satellites to over 1000 TVs or Set-boxes in a Guest house, Apartment Block or Hotel. A simple version for home use can feed up to 16 rooms for under €50 a room, including installation, dish and all parts excluding the TV sets or Set-box. Compatible with Sky+ and SkyHD pay systems, but those can’t receive the Saorsat, only the Freesat/Sky channels. So one room can have payTV and all rooms can have TVs with Satellite tuner built in or “Freesat HD” Set-boxes.

Reception outside Ireland.

The reception of Saorsat outside Ireland is likely to be limited. The Ka-Sat uses two polarisations and two bands. These are reused 82 times to give the 82 spots. Two spots next to each other always differ in Band, Polarity or both. A further away spot can’t be received at all if the same polarity and frequency is used on a nearer spot.

The next graphic a possible assignment, showing area with the same band and polarity as the same colour. Since all the spots/beams are from the same Satellite, it’s impossible to receive Spot Nx if you move too close to Spot Ny, where N are two matching spots and x and y are two locations.

The Magenta rings are contours of spot signal power.
The coloured spots are official main service areas
Spots of same colour use the same mix of frequency and Polarisation

The first white ring indicate contour of what a published service area might include with a still “normal” size dish (80cm to 110cm) The outer white ring is low signal needing very large dish (1.2m to 2.5m) as it overlaps same settings of Frenc Calais spot. It must be low enough to cause no interference. The spots come from the SAME satellite, so along a line at tangent (purple line) to the two lime circles gets equal signal from both feeds (spots) no matter how big the dish is. Because it’s the same satellite. In fact of the four dishes on the satellite, it’s two separate offset feeds on the same dish. You can only separate the signals enough, reliably, by moving within the Irish or French Blue circles (with Lime fill) along the line between their centres. If the symbol rates, power and drop off of signal from France is enough that Co.Down coast to Ballycastle in Co. Antrim gets only just low enough interference to work on Irish Spot, then the red line marks the edge of possible Irish reception, but only if the French Spot has a similar carrier. As the symbol rate is lowered and frequency shifted, then the Red and Purple lines move toward the French spot. Conclusion is that if there is no interfering French signal a large dish might work as far as UK Midlands. If there is a French Calais signal overlapping the Saorsat carriers, then no matter what size dish, the coverage is limited to the Welsh coast.

So the coloured spots on the Ka-Sat maps don’t represent footprints, but service areas. A foot print (signal coverage) has contours of signal strength.

Tags

Definitioner

Used by Saorsat on Ka-Sat. Freesat and Sky use Linear or Plane Polarisation

Ku Band

Sky, Freesat and most European TV uses 10.7GHz to 12.6GHz

Ka band

Saorsat uses the 19.7Ghz to 20.2GHz part of Ka Band

Set-box

A self contained Receiver decoder that can connect to a TV set via SCART or HDMI. HMDI is required for HD content. If your TV is not an HDTV, you can see down-scaled HD via the SCART. Some have dual tuners and Hard Disk (HDD) for recording (PVR)

Setbox

A self contained Receiver decoder that can connect to a TV set via SCART or HDMI. HMDI is required for HD content. If your TV is not an HDTV, you can see down-scaled HD via the SCART. Some have dual tuners and Hard Disk (HDD) for recording (PVR)

LNBF

an LNB with a built in "feed horn" to focus or collect the signal from the dish better. Most Domestic LNB are actually LNBF.

LNB

Low Noise Block Down-converter. Converts the Extremely high frequency (3,700MHz to 22,000MHz depending if C-Band, Ku-Band or Ka-Band Satellite) to a frequency band just above UHF TV, to feed to the rest of the Satellite Receiver via coax cable.

Diseqc

(Digital Satellite Equipment Control), pronounced "Die-Sec", is a special communication protocol for use between a satellite receiver and a device such as a multi-dish switch or a dish motor. DiSEqC was developed by European satellite provider Eutelsat. It uses the LNB / IF coax cable to the dish for power and signalling to the switch. It and multiple LNBs or a motor are needed to receive more than one satellite on a TV or Receiver.

PVR

Personal Video Recorder. The replacement for VHS and DVD Recorders. They have a Digital Tuner and simply copy the live transmission exactly to a Computer type hard Drive (HDD). They can record from 50 hrs of assorted programs to an amazing one week of EVERY channel at once depending on Model and Capacity. Playback is thus identical quality to Live TV. They can “pause” Live TV if the phone rings, baby cries, door bell or pot boils over. When un-pausing some allow slightly faster than real-time playback so you can “catch up” with Live transmission. When you finish watching the channel/program the automatic background recording stops. Some models can “save” programs to DVDs or BD (blu-ray) writeable disc. The basic Analogue Tuner DVD recorder or VHS is obsolete. Typically you have a on-screen 7 day guide which allows you to pick a program or entire series for automatic recording. Some models will even automatically record if you normally watch a program and miss it without manually scheduling it.

DVB-S2

A newer type of Satellite transmission. Most but not all HD channels use it. All HD Satellite receivers now can do DVB-S and DVB-S2, such as “Freesat HD” or “Sky HD” boxes. Some TVs can use it.

MHEG5

Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts Group Version 5, a "middleware" system providing similar features to those familiar on a Sky SetBox for Program Guide (EPG), Interactive text with pictures and video. Unlike MPEG2 and MPEG4 this is not a codec and nothing to do with video decoding or compression.

MPEG4

Motion Picture Expert Group. The version of Codec used for Video on “Freeview HD”, “Sky HD”, UPC cable Digital HDTV and “Freesat HD”. All HDTV requires MPEG4. Additionally many newer Digital services, including Ireland’s Saorview and Saorsat, only use MPEG4 for video, even SD (non-HD), with no use of MPEG2 at all. MPEG4 video of same quality and resolution takes about 1/2 the space or less, so twice the channels or more HDTV can be carried on same Transmitter or Satellite. Freeview, Sky and Freesat can’t change to MPEG4 to have more space as the original MPEG2 based TVs and Set-boxes can’t be upgraded to MPEG4. This is why on older services only the HDTV uses MPEG4 and new networks use only MPEG4.

SCART

Traditional cable for VHS, DVD or Set-box to connect to a TV. Does not carry HDTV. RGB mode is the best quality.

HDMI

(High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a compact digital connection between High Definition Set-box or BluRay (BD) player and an HDTV. The traditional large SCART connector does not do HDTV.

Freesat HD

UK FTA (Free to Air) digital TV, excluding HDTV, picked up on a Dish from a Satellite 36,000km above the Equator @28.2E. This has more channels than Freeview and can be received for free anywhere in Ireland. All the most viewed channels are actually on Sky. Pay Channels such as Sky Sport and Sky One are not on Freesat, but they have less than 2% viewing time, among Sky Subscribers. No Pay channel has more than 2% viewing time and most are less than 0.1%! No Freesat model will work with Saorsat.